I was in the original lottery of 1969 as a Junior at NC State. Our fraternity had a big Lottery party and pool with low number getting 3/4 the pot and high number 1/4. As usual I was in the middle of the pack at 172.

During the spring of my senior year, I had to take the physical in Raleigh, and was absolutely stunned that out of the hundreds of guys there, the room full of us that "passed" at the end of the day was less than 100. I observed a few varsity footballers that weren’t fit enough for Uncle Sam, but had played each week in the fall.

I tried to get into a reserve unit with my friend, as I and many others didn’t see the point of jungle warfare against some unknown enemy for some  reason that I didn’t understand. Graduation was approaching and I had still not gotten the results of my physical forwarded from my local draft board to the reserve unit. I finally called the SSS office in my home town to see what was going on. The lady working there told me that they were currently at number 155, but not to worry as she was "taking care of it", which I assumed was expediting my physical to the reserve unit. Apparently, graduation had turned a lot of II-S guys into I-A, and as they went back to the low numbers they never got past 155 at my draft board. My physical never showed up at the reserve unit, so I never served in the military. Nixon canceled the draft in the next year, and that was it for me.

I am thankful of my "guardian angel" at the SSS office. Even  though I never did anything wrong, I have some guilty feelings for those that went to Nam, and those that never came back.